ChowChow12

Hey everyone!
I am fresh in the world of poker, and have only played a bit with play money. I am looking to start getting my game up, and would like to learn much more about this. I am a Geophysics major in school, so I am pretty comfortable with math, and if I can make some decent income with Poker it will save me having to get a job while in school!

I am a little confused, with the Post Flop stuff from the stuff we were quizzed on. (Entry Quiz) Hopefully this will get cleared up as I progress. It seems a lot like this is where the intreptation and experiance really shines.

Question 1: What is your motivation for playing poker?
The thinking acpect is really apeals to me. This is truly a thinking mans game, and the unpredictable nature of it makes it really exciting. Trying to figure out certain aspects of anything is just in my nature. I am a Geophysics Major, and so math is really a tool i use often, so that fact does not overly scare me. I am hoping that Poker will help me get some money while I am in school, and not have to get a part time job. While Poker would be my job: this I understand, but it would be something I enjoy doing. Also I think poker really helps exercise self control, and critical thought, since it can reward you for doing the really dumb thing: it makes you think about what the correct choices are.

Question 2: What are your weaknesses when playing poker? (What are the mistakes you know you are making during your games? Are you playing while you're tired? Are you tilting easily? Want to see the showdown too much? Write down as many as you think are affecting you.) I am very inexperianced, so I don't even know what my weaknesses are to be honest. I know I will have a hard time folding on the flop, since I really don't like doing that from my experiance with play money. I am wanting to runn some simulations with my computer science knowledge as well once I get more aquented to the game.

Question 3: What does it mean to play tight aggressive?
Tight and agressive means: that you are playing with solid cards. Not playing everyhand, which would be the opposite of tight: loose. The Idea is that you play the higher end cards, depending on where you are on the table and the actions before you, and you will win when you play. The idea of position means if your at a late postion and everyone has folded you know not many people have good cards, as well as you have less people in the Pot, so your chances of winning are higher. Agressive means that when you play, and are betting, you are betting high, hard so those who at the table are put under pressure to play. You are going to make people pay to see the flop, turn, river, and showdown, with having a solid hand. The chances of winning are high and the payouts are high.

Most of the weakness you wrote can easily be fixed by posting hands (analyzing your session). We will start writing feedback to your play. Usually negative feedback will put you into thinking phase and trying to fix all those leaks. It's almost the same as you lose money, you will remember it more than winning part. By this situation it's gonna be that negative feedback you gonna remember and try to avoid them next time.

What about tilt? Do you adjust something against it? For example:
Easiest way to fight against tilt is to set up stop-loss technique. Which means if you for example have lost more than 3BIs for a session then you just stop the session for some time. The BI amount is set up from your own results. Some may put it higher, some lower. Also after the stop you can spend some time with evaluation part to become better.

Tight style is usually called playing selected hands. Like following the Starting Hand Chart. Aggressive should be also pretty clear that already the word says how you should be playing. But the problem playing aggressively is that you have to watch that you don't play too aggressive. Find good spots, find good targets. About The tight-aggressive strategy you can read in this article: "What is the Big Stack Strategy?"

Question 1: What do you think you could play differently than suggested in the BSS Starting Hands Chart and why? (Are there any hands you would play differently? Do you have a problem or question about how a specific hand or hands should be played?)
A lot of it depends on reads. If I just came to a table with randoms, and have no stats I would likely not deviate from the SHC. In the case where I have reads, I would play a bit looser cards when trying to steal the blinds if the players are tight. As stated in the articals and videos, it more comes down to stats and reads. Isolation I would play looser as well, if the opponent tends to limp a lot and have a high Cbet fold% then playing looser a bit looser from late position may also be a bit of a good call. Also if the play min-raises a lot but folds to a raise often, I would be more inclined to raise them with a looser hand.

Question 2: Do you have questions about your preflop play? Post your hand for evaluation. ( Post your hand in the Hand evaluation forums and provide a link to your hand in your private thread in the Locker Room.) I have a question about All-in situations. In BSS, is there ever really a good time to go all in with JJ, or AK? I might see if the villian is a bit of a fish to want to get into an All-in situation preflop with something like AKs. Having played some MSS, this is usually the case in the later game, but i find I got burned pretty hard with AKo, and had more luck when I saw, and could judge on the flop. I don't really have a hand to post for this question since I am playing pretty tight, and not wanting to take unnecessary risks on my BR.
Also if a limper comes out of nowhere and 3bets/shoves you, and you have a decently high pair of cards. Let use AK for example, and assume that he isn't super tight (why would he be if he is limping?) under what conditions is it reasonable to call/shove?

Question 3: What is the equity of AKo against the top 5% range? 5% means 88+, AJs+, KQs, AKo. ( You can either calculate this yourself or use an equity calculator such as the PokerStrategy.com Equilab.) I calculated it has 46.32% against the top 5% range, which I think helps answer my above questions, but if someone if limping I have a hard time thinking that they would limp with a top 5% unless it's a trap.

Totally agree with you about the stealing ranges. Against specific opponents we adjust, either wider range or tighter range. Against some shorties you can even steal with smaller raise, for example 3xBB. But don't overdo the stealing situations. Sometimes you might just put yourself into too many difficult spots if opening with marginal hands. As for example stealing too many hands from SB and being out of position.

Isolating can be very profitable actually since people on lower stakes take the fast and easy line by just Fit/Folding too much. With that you will earn in long run a lot profit. Which means you can isolate with even wider range, sometimes even with the all range which you planned to limp.

I have a question about All-in situations. In BSS, is there ever really a good time to go all in with JJ, or AK?

As we have below here how good the hand does as AKo vs given range. But usually the given range is even tighter and therefore the equity isn't very good. There has to be a reason to go broke with those type of hands as guy also goes broke loose, if rather not then at some point we might even want to turn your hand into bluff as AKo or even play passively with JJ and just Call vs UTG range for example.

Also if a limper comes out of nowhere and 3bets/shoves you, and you have a decently high pair of cards. Let use AK for example, and assume that he isn't super tight (why would he be if he is limping?) under what conditions is it reasonable to call/shove?

Limp/Raise or whatsoever shove is usually going to a be a trap and you can easily fold a lot of hands. We can assume it's more likely KK+ unless we have some other reads.

Question 1: You are holding KQ. What is your preflop equity against an opponent who has 33? How does the equity change on this flop: J53? (Tip: you can use the Equilab to help you with this task.)
Part 1)http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Equity Win Tie
UTG 50.78% 50.40% 0.38% { KsQs }
UTG+1 49.22% 48.84% 0.38% { 3d3c }

I don't really want to use odds and outs, and maybe this is why I am struggling in my play. Using Equilab, for ranges, I gave him mid pair ranges, and 6 and 3. While it would be rediculas to call with a 63, I want to have a pessimestic guess. Midpairs make sense due to the call, or call 20 rule.

The pot, if we called, would be .25+.22+.44+.22 =1.13, and our cost would be .22 so
.22/1.13 = 19% so we would need 19% equity to make a profit when we have 27%. Also implied odds will be taken into account, so if we hit we will make more due to an agressive Villian. Honestly, with looking at the flop I doubt he has pocket 2's, 3's, or 6's since I feel he would be trying to protect his hand, or get value on the flop, so looking at a tighter ranges gives us almost no change in Equity:

Question 3: Do you have questions about your postflop play? Post your hand for evaluation. (Post your hand in the hand evaluation forum and provide a link to your hand in your private thread in the Locker Room.)

Yes, I am a chicken, and still really nervous about my post flop play. Having played MSS: I found it is a lot more straight forward of a play since I had charts. I posted 3 hands, but those, I feel, tie into the same issue. Lost about 1.5BI on my first BSS session today, the preflop doesn't bug me all that much. As well I wasn't using stats until now as I could not get HM2 to cooperate. I tend to rather be safe than sorry. If I have a top pair, and someone reraises me after my Cbet I usually want to fold. I feel like (Will know for sure after you review homework) I know the theory well enough, but the practical is just a differant animal. The Stats are very helpful though, but I have very limited knowledge on what I can imply about my Villians.
Anyway here are the hands:JJo flop nl2AQo Flop NL2NL2 KKo Postflop

Question 1: Post a hand for evaluation in which you have the initiative postflop. (Post your hand in the Hand evaluation board, and provide a link to your hand in your private thread.)AQo River

Question 2: Evaluate one of the hands submitted by other members. (Choose a hand from the Hand evaluation board and post your own evaluation in the thread. Post a link to the hand you have evaluated in your private thread. You can evaluate as many hands as you want, but try to choose hands not yet evaluated by other users.)

About Question #2:
There are several occasions on turn:
a) If we take just odds for the FD and we take into account that all our odds are clean. Which means:
Total Pot = $0,91 ; We have to Call = $0,22 -> According to that it means we are getting ~4,16:1 odds. For flushdraw we would need 4:1. Which tells us that we are getting perfect odds.
b) If we consider the opponent having sets here:
Which means we have to discount outs, for example 6 and also 3. Which means we have 7 clean outs so that means we need 6:1 odds. That tells us that we need ~$0,41 on river to make it profitable. If we expect the opponent being loose enough and being able to pay us no-matter what then we can do the Call here properly.
c) We might even have overcards as outs or even 4 as a out:
Although this kind of situation ain't that likely. I'd rather discount that one and either pick a) or b). Most likely towards Call.

This weeks homework was a bit easier. But the idea of that is to help you go through last weeks stuff if you didn't go through everything. Or either way maybe even read some more articles, watch some videos and of course attend in the coaching. What will also help for your game is the evaluation part of other members hands and of course posting your own hands.

If you have interests you could try calculating the equity with a formula which you can use even on tables(either playing online or live poker):
(Amount of outs x 4) – (Amount of outs – 8) = Your Equity

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Chowchow12: 12.10.2012 21:50.

So I decided to pick back up with the Beginners course as I am thinking about moving from SnG's to cash tables and this course just seems like to great of a resource to not use.
I reread a lot of the articles and videos for previous homework, so here is my next one!

Question 1: Post a hand for evaluation where you have based your decisions on the stats of your opponents.
I have been playing in a differant room from my sngs ( don't want to merge bankrolls) and my HUD doesn't want to work on PS.com, so I have been playing w/o it. If i switch to wpt or i get it working I will update this though.

Question 2: Evaluate one of the hands submitted by other members.nl4 sh AJs

So the turn comes and we make our flushdraw. I am going to look at each of the situations seperatly.

Fold: Nope, way to strong to fold this here.

Raise: While raising here seems tempting I am thinking about what worse hands would call that. I think 3x hands, and lower flush draws, or trip J's. Since there are not much lower flush draws than we have I am just going to discount that, since I don't know if 23d would even call there. The BB calls, and he is rather passive so I would guess there is a chance we could make him call with worse hands.

Call: To me this seems like the best option, we call this and we still have great odds, and there are not many cards on the flop that we are scared of so no need to raise, the only think there is to be scared of is another Diamond, since that would give there 1d hands a flush, and we are then in trouble. I think it also gives us some bluff catching.

The stats on this guy are close, The podcast coaching said 25+ VPIP is pretty loose, and the lower PFR, so classifying him is a bit tricky, he has a higher than normal everything, but I think it is so close I am going to assume he knows what he is doing.

He 3bet us from the button, and with taggy stats I want to put him on a range like this:
88+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, AJo+
(I could be way out to lunch here, but hopefully I am correct in this.)

So, a good part of his hand hits this board, but we also are ahead of most of it execpt for AA, KK QQ. Most the rest of his hands either have a pair of 10s or a draw, or just over cards. Because of this I think Donking might actually be a good choice, since his range is going to have a decent amount of outs, and I think it is worth it to protect our hand. Putting us in equilator we have:http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Board: 6h9sTc
Equity Win Tie
UTG 58.54% 57.79% 0.75% { JhJs }
UTG+1 41.46% 40.71% 0.75% { 88+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, AJo+ }

So I think donking here is worth it. Since we are ahead, we have fold equity, and we have a few outs. If we get raised we can fold, and if we call we can re-evaluate on the turn. (Really not to sure of myself on that one, but I think that this is a good course of action.) I just think AK, KQ, JQ all have 8 outs against us, so we should be betting for protection here. But I also don't know what this TAGish player would think of that. So maybe Check/Raising is better? Either way he plays a bit looser, but not rediculas I have a hard time thinking he would go broke with something worse than our hand. Maybe this is the nit of my talking. The more the write the more I think check/raising is a better idea since he might call thinking we have overcards or something.. (My thoughts are kind of all over the place here.) So I would probly Donk or check raise.

About Task #3
It's a very close decision: does protection or pot control weigh heavier here? Do you want to protect against hands like 3x or A:dx and K:dx? Or do you want to control the pot size and try to induce a bluff on the river in case there is no T, no J and no additional ?

Raise/fold is out of question - with the given pot size and the good made hand you have, it can't even be considered.

In case you decide to go broke, you can't really be blamed either. It's not a sign of weakness that the rather tight small blind decides to bet into two people here, though. I would say a call is to be slightly favored, while the many outs against you are annoying. The big blind who calls rather loosely speaks in favor of a raise/broke again. Both options are finally considered equal, which shows - all things considered - how close and full of variance these spots really are.

About Task #4
You've called pre-flop and then hit a good board. You basically have two choices now: either you assume that your opponent will go broke loosely or puts you on a bluff often and you thus check/raise - or you play check/call in the spirit of way ahead / way behind. The problem with the latter is that there are a lot of cards you don't want to see in the later course of the hand. All in all, it depends on your balancing as both lines make sense under certain circumstances.

A check/fold would be really pointless, of course. It's hard to say whether you should donk-bet here; donk/fold can be discarded as that would turn your hand into a pure bluff and your opponent would interpret this as weakness and start raising you out of flops with hands like AK/AQ/air. So, if you want to donk-bet, it has to be a donk/3-bet.

This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by Chowchow12: 22.10.2012 07:36.

Question 1: Post a hand for evaluation where you have either a) freeplay, b) slowplay, or c) multi-way pot situation. (Post your hand in the Hand evaluation board, and provide a link to your hand in your private thread.)Postflop all in shove.

Question 2: Evaluate one of the hands submitted by other members. (Choose a hand from the Hand evaluation board and post your own evaluation in the thread. Post a link to the hand you have evaluated in your private thread. You can evaluate as many hands as you want, but try to choose hands not yet evaluated by other users first.)nl2fr 79s
Question 3: Consider the following situation:

We have position on BB, and he bets into us. I am pretty sure it's safe to say we have the best hand here. QQ, JJ I think even is he is a calling station he would have bet here. We far and away do not have the nuts. AQ is possible, and makes a lot of sense, since he is betting into us with 2 pair being such a call station. I can see a fishy calling station trying to slowplay AQ. I would give him 3s AJ+, QT, KQ, QJ but that is pretty pessimistic that he wouldn't bet into us with 2pair on the flop. I don't think he is betting into us on a FD or SD.

I think folding the turn is a no go, we have a decent chance of being ahead here.

Calling seems like the best option. With the high possibility of being dominated we can bet small on the river (if it's a blank) and keep worse hands in, or even check behind the river.

I think raising is an option because he is such a calling station and he may be his QX, AX hands in, but I think we are beat here a lot.

Putting my range (which I am not to sure about, maybe I am giving this guy to much credit)

So I think the plan for this is to call, and call a small bet on the river, or check behind. I don't think we are pulling any better hands off this hand, so since we have a good shot at being beat here we don't want to inflate the pot.

About Question #3:
Two lines can quickly be discarded here: fold and raise/fold; your hand is simply too strong for those alternatives.

It's hard to assess whether you should put in a raise here. When a rather passive player decides to bet into three players while being out of position, it does look strong. It's more likely an indication of a made hand than that of a draw.

A raise naturally protects, but you run the risk of isolating yourself against very strong range. Which weaker hands could your opponent possibly continue playing here?

The deciding factor finally comes in the size of the pot. This tiny pot simply isn't worth putting yourself into a tough spot where you could potentially end up risking your entire stack. A raise would be overplayed here and pot control takes the precedent over protection.

Question 1: Post a hand for evaluation where you have played on a 6-max table (short-handed). (Post your hand in the No Limit: Hand Evaluations forum, and provide a link to your hand in your private thread.)KK River and betsizing.

Question 2: Evaluate one of the hands submitted by other members (Choose a hand from the No Limit: Hand Evaluations board and post your own evaluation in the thread. Post a link to the hand you have evaluated in your private thread. You can evaluate as many hands as you want, but try to choose hands not yet evaluated by other users first.)

What action would you take, and why?
We have a bunch of outs here, the thing that concerns me is we have a low FD, but I can see this happening more with hands like trips, 2pair top pair. I would just think they would want to get the money in early. But with thease big speculative multiway pots it may be that 2 of them have hearts. Against unknowns, this is tough. Most of the time I see all ins is with trips, 2 pair, 2 pair. I would think Trips is more common, and I really doubt they would be calling with Q2, Q3. I think this could be happening with things like QT etc. So I think the best course of action here is to call. I think think we are ahead more than 30% of the time. (My equillab said so
)

What action would you take, and why?
This is a pretty dry turn. We have a huge 4 way pot here. So, we can just shove, or call and play passivly. I think that if we shove, we will have others calling us thinking we are full of it, so that might be an alright play.

The other is to play passively, and I am not all that sure what to do. It's unlikely we improving, but there is little room for draws, so I think shoving might not be a horrible since I can see a lot of pocket pairs calling.

Something tells me the high EV play here is the passive line since we are just going to be getting more money from calls of people getting good odds, but I think I am partial to shoving here.

About Question #3:
In this case, you decided to bet out yourself and two players behind you go all-in. You would have to invest $8.40 in order to participate in a $22 pot, which corresponds to an equity of 27.63%.

You get the required odds even when you're exclusively up against very strong hands!

About Question #4:
Top pair / top kicker has been and will always be a hand that's tough to play, especially in a multi-way pot. In this case, you've hit a nice flop, but you're up against 3 opponents on a dry board which doesn't allow for any dangerous draws.

A fold on this board is, of course, too weak. You can't really hit much better and there might be worse Ax hands willing to pay you off.

If you think that your opponent(s) is/are often willing to go broke on the flop with worse hands, raising might not be the worst of choices. But one thing is clear: if you raise, you have to go all-in on the flop! Raise/fold with your top pair is absolutely out of question.

Even though this might leave a bitter aftertaste in a 4-way pot, you should play this like a way ahead / way behind spot here - by playing it passive, you will extract the maximum from weaker hands and bluffs while avoiding big losses against stronger hands.